Around the AL: O's lose another pitcher to injury

Baltimore Orioles catcher Ramon Hernandez noticed that pitcher Adam Loewen was shaking his left hand after throwing a pitch in the fifth inning of Sunday’s game against the Texas Rangers. More disturbing to Hernandez was how Loewen wore what Hernandez described as “that pained face.”

Hernandez wasn’t imagining things.

Loewen came out of the game after throwing one more pitch, complaining of sharp pain in his left elbow — the same one that had a screw surgically implemented last year to repair a fracture, the same one that led him to the disabled list on April 25 because of recurring discomfort. Loewen was making only his third appearance, all in relief, since being activated. At that point, he said his arm felt great throughout the nine games he pitched on an injury rehab assignment.

The Orioles scheduled a CT scan for Loewen, the fourth overall pick in the 2002 draft out of British Columbia, and the news turned out to be even more grim than they imagined. The fracture has widened, which forced the Orioles to return Loewen to the disabled list and schedule an appointment with Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala.

“He’s not going to pitch for a while,” manager Dave Trembley said.

“The (previous) stress fracture was such that it was a split and they put a screw in it to hold it together, right? Well, I think the CT scan showed that space there again. It's a re-injury of the original stress fracture."

Loewen joins fellow relievers Matt Albers and Jamie Walker on the DL. The Orioles’ bullpen is being shuffled more than a deck of cards, and Trembley is left to sort through the jokers.

“You see it happen here every year and I don’t know why,” Hernandez said. “Starters, relievers, they always start getting hurt. Every year since I’ve been here, it’s been like that.”

The Orioles wanted to keep Loewen in the bullpen for the rest of the season before allowing him to compete for a rotation spot in 2009. They also weren’t going to activate him until he gave assurances that his elbow was fine. And it was — until Sunday.

“He’s a tremendous person. He worked very hard,” Trembley said. “I made a phone call to him the day before he got called back up here because I wanted to make sure that he was OK physically and mentally. He passed every test. He told me he never felt anything the whole time he was rehabbing. Now we have a definite setback.”

The Orioles replaced Loewen with another left-hander, Alberto Castillo, who was 3-1 with a 2.05 ERA at Triple-A Norfolk. Before this season, Castillo hadn’t been in the minors since 2001, when he was a position player with Single-A Bakersfield. He toiled for many years in the independent Atlantic League and never rose above the Single-A level until this season.

Castillo made his major league debut against the Toronto Blue Jays on the same night that the Orioles purchased his contract. He faced two batters, walking one and hitting the other.

The way the Orioles’ luck is going these days, that seemed about right.

Trying to double his pleasure

Going into the weekend, Seattle Mariners utility man Willie Bloomquist, now platooning in center field with Jeremy Reed, didn’t have an extra-base hit in his first 86 at-bats. He didn’t have one since collecting a double on Sept. 12. He wondered if he’d ever get another one, or if he’d been reminded of it incessantly.

Bloomquiest batted in the bottom of the ninth inning of a recent game with the score tied. He lined a ball into left-center field, and it rolled to the wall.

No way this was going to be another single.

Except that Bloomquist never made it to second base. The winning run scored on his hit, and he was credited with, yes, a single.

Rather than making it halfway around the infield, or even to third base, he ended up beneath a pile of jubilant Mariners.

"I'm trying to outrun all the crew trying to tackle me," Bloomquist said. "I wanted a double. I haven't had a double yet this year, so I was hoping to get to second. No, it was kind of instinctive running, I guess. You never know if a guy falls or trips and you get the next base."

On second thought…

After his maple bat shattered and almost impaled Brian O’Nora, leaving a gash in the plate umpire’s forehead, Kansas City Royals catcher Miguel Olivo immediately switched to ash. It’s sturdier and it’s less likely to bust a hole in someone who’s standing nearby.

And then Olivo changed his mind instead of the wood.

Olivo was swinging the maple when he belted a pinch-hit homer off Orioles closer George Sherrill with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning in a game the Royals eventually won at Camden Yards.

"I feel more comfortable with the maple bat," he said. "There's more balance, and when you hit the ball, you don't have to take a hard swing. But they break easily. The last two weeks, I've broken 15 or 16 bats."

O’Nora can count one of them.

“Everybody prefers maple bats," Olivo said. "I'm just scared that somebody is going to get really hurt one day."

You mean they haven’t already?

Life’s a drag

It makes sense for Minnesota Twins center fielder Carlos Gomez to square up when he’s at the plate. Heading into the weekend, his 20 bunt singles led the majors.

Go with your strengths.

Here’s another reason: His 84th strikeout last Wednesday left him on pace for 160, which would shatter the club’s single-season record of 145 set by Bobby Darwin in 1972.

Question of the Week:

“What’s Boston Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek doing on the All-Star team?”

If you answered, “Because the players voted him in,” that’s technically correct, but not what we’re looking for.

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